Is there some sinister plot afoot?

There is every chance that if the New Day Pacifica Referendum succeeds that WBAI will be shut down again. Three of the 4 proposed officers approved of the shutdown of WBAI. KPFT, WPFW and KPFT could also become repeater stations and lose any connection to their communities.

There is sentiment by many backers of New Day that any station that is failing should be shut down. When the Chair of the Pacifica National Finance Committee asked what should be done if a station is not bringing in enough income, Sharon Adams, the Treasurer of KPFA said:

“Well, it’s what should have happened back in October that station should be playing and airing the content of other stations that are perhaps profitable at least not losing money and that tend to use to stabilize the stations by laying off the staff or furloughing or whatever needs to happen at those stations. Content can be aired nationwide and that saves expenses, it saves Pacifica and it doesn’t kill Pacifica, because if you take money from KPFA, the only station that’s earning money, you’re going to kill Pacifica…”

You can listen to this discussion at this link:

Pacifica PNB NFC Finance Committee meeting

Beth Kean, who submitted the New Day Pacifica bylaws petition and is one of the chief spokespeople for the New Day campaign. In a public comment that Beth made at a KPFA Local Board meeting on December 19, 2020 she shows her concern for KPFA and disdain for our other stations:

“KPFA is a wonderful, wonderful station with superb programming made possible only because of the hard work of its staff, both paid and volunteer, and the support of thousands and thousands of listeners with their finances, the rest of Pacifica is in bad, bad shape. If we do not reform the Pacifica organization KPFA will be going down the toilet with the rest of these stations…”

You can listen to her at this link:

Beth Kean – KPFA LSB 2020-12-19.mp3

New Day Pacifica spreads the fiction that Pacifica governance is ‘dysfunctional,’ even though over the last few years the Board and iED have:

• extended the loan that enabled the settlement of our $5.7 million debt to the Empire State Realty Trust for $3.8 million, thus reducing our overall debt by $1.9 million. This prevented a ruinous bankruptcy being pushed by some who now support New Day

• set policy that will pay off the principal of the loan through major donor, bequest and grant income

• obtained $2.4 million in federal stimulus funds

• completed the Fiscal Year 2019 audit, with FY2020 on track to be completed in June

• developed the national COVID Race and Democracy show among all five stations and the Affiliates

• worked to bring KPFK expenses into line with revenue

• prevented the sale of the KPFA building due to unhandled property taxes

• ensured that the Pacifica workers’ pension plans are fully funded

Also see: A tale of revival:Pacifica Emerges from the Pandemic

While it is true that our stations are facing serious challenges, all in all Pacifica is faring well in comparison to radio and other terrestrial media.

Smaller boards and ‘professional’ managers have done little to stem the decline of many media entities, so why should we assume that they will be able to ‘fix’ Pacifica? Air America is gone, Current TV is gone, iHeartRadio with 850 stations had to file bankruptcy in 2018.

Cumulus Radio filed for bankruptcy also.

These downfalls were all before the pandemic. The pandemic caused many prominent and viable radio stations to ask for federal covid relief funding. Significant layoffs have been made at WNYC in New York, KPCC and KCRW in Los Angeles and KQED in the San Francisco Bay Area, among others.

insideradio.com/free/new-york-public-radio-cuts-14-positions-announces- additional-cost-saving-measures/article_3b9296a4-ac0d-11eb-8e84-135a0e585cb8.html

latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-09-16/kcrw-layoffs-buyouts-public-radio

reuters.com/article/us-cumulus-media-bankruptcy/cumulus-media-files-for- bankruptcy-protection-idUSKBN1DU08U

It can be seen that many radio stations are struggling, have gotten federal covid relief funds and are making significant expense cuts. These stations have declined despite small, appointed boards and ‘professional’ managers. Copying the corporate model won’t improve Pacifica’s prospects.

The Bylaws are not really the problem

Our radio station managers have rarely supported democratic Local Station Board elections. They have, for the most part, facilitated the insider/crony system by refusing to inform the membership of the elections until after the nomination period is over. Sometimes this has been by design, sometimes neglect, but the pattern has been repeated election after election. Our listeners and members have rarely been informed about the opportunity to serve on our Boards. Board Members persuade their friends and colleagues to become candidates because the membership has no idea that they can nominate themselves, so recruitment is done despite Station Management. Other Board Members do the same. It becomes ‘Suzy’s friends’ versus ‘Amy’s’ friends. That’s how factions happen. This is what has really been wrong with Pacifica – not the Bylaws themselves.

Let’s take a look at the ‘Professionalism’ Meme

Some New Day representatives talk about hiring ‘professional’ managers. They also complain about the high turnover of executive directors over the last 10 or 15 years. There are problems with the supposition that hiring a strong, experienced executive director, and other ‘professional’ managers, will solve Pacifica’s problems.

Let’s explore this a bit. It’s clear from this chart that more people listen to music on the radio than listen to news and talk:

statista.com/chart/24877/most-popular-us-radio-content/

Not surprisingly, many applicants for an executive director or station manager position are strong on music experience. A smaller percent have experience in talk radio of the NPR type that is mainly funded by underwriting and major donors. Many ‘professional’ managers try to shift Pacifica stations toward accepting corporate underwriting and major donor funding. That’s what they’re experienced in. It’s what they are comfortable with, what they know. This causes friction with the Pacifica Boards that are composed of people who love the independent nature of Pacifica with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies. Pacifica is unique and needs managers who know and understand Pacifica.

Pacifica is closest to the community radio model. However, most community radio stations are tiny with tiny budgets and very low overhead. That is not the case at Pacifica stations because they operate in large cities with unavoidably high overhead. Managers who come from community radio usually understand the Pacifica ‘culture’ but often don’t know how to raise the funds necessary to pay the expenses. Pacifica is unique.

Many ‘professionals’ who have been hired as executive directors and general managers have failed. They get frustrated because the Boards stop them from taking corporate underwriting and stop them from sanitizing programming to appeal to major donors. They refrain from improving programming because they don’t know how to deal with large numbers of programmers who apply pressure to stay on the air no matter how mediocre their programs are. They’re not experienced in the Pacifica culture. In short, the experience ‘professionals’ have doesn’t relate to Pacifica’s unique ecosystem.

Marc Cooper, a former host and news director at KPFK, summed it up in a 2014 news article, “The central underlying problem at Pacifica is that in the end, what dictates everything is the individual programmer’s desire to hold onto his or her airtime. Management has always been weak.”

We can only speculate why the New Day Pacifica bylaws have been so popular with staff at KPFA, KPFK and KPFT. We know from what some programmers have said on the air that they absolutely hate begging for money during fund drives. They may fear being taken off the air if they don’t raise enough. Because of this, the prospect of corporate underwriting or significant major donor funding may be a contributing factor to their endorsement. Sharon Kyle and Jan Goodman have said that as soon as the bylaws are changed major donors will give their support. This may be true or just wishful thinking. No evidence of this has been provided. Another popular idea is that the National and Local Boards should do a great deal of fundraising. Ian Masters, the host of the very popular show Background Briefing, has said that Local Board Members should be required to raise at least $35,000 per year each. This type of board fundraising model works well when the board is composed of wealthy socialites. Rich people are good at fundraising because they know other rich people. Making fund raising the chief duty of a board member can be mortifying for those with middle and lower incomes and discourage them from board participation. Valuing board members who are wealthy will probably result in programming that rich people like.

There is another possible reason for the popularity of the New Day bylaws with stations on the west coast. Some show hosts want to reach a broader audience. The trend to air programs produced at one station on other stations has both pluses and minuses. One plus is that a station can pick up a well-produced show at no cost. However, there is a minus as well. National and international news can be accessed easily on many TV and radio stations, the internet, and on social media. Even left and radical views on national and international issues are easy to access on many platforms. The agglomeration of media in the United States that came into being during the Clinton Administration has led to less and less state and local news and information. Pacifica should be filling this gap with locally produced and locally oriented shows. The loss of the KPFK news department has irked KPFK members. Instead of a nightly KPFK news show, the KPFA news program is aired. Of course, some national and international shows are needed, but our stations should not be airing those shows exclusively.

John Vernile, Pacifica iED in 2019, shutdown our New York station, WBAI in October of that year. This was done illegally because it did not have Pacifica National Board approval. A court decision overturned the shutdown and WBAI was back on the air within a month. During the time that WBAI was shut down, programming was piped in from the west coast stations. It was called ‘Pacifica Across America’. Ambitious west coast show hosts may be attracted to the idea that if New Day Pacifica prevails their shows will be aired in New York– the largest media market in the U.S.! This may be the secret sauce that makes the New Day plan appealing to some.

Simply stated, supporters of the New Day Pacifica Referendum approved of or actually carried out the illegal shutdown of WBAI. Some have proposed selling WBAI or WPFW. Most staff and members at WBAI and WPFW don’t trust New Day supporters and are afraid that their stations will be shut down or sold if the New Day Referendum wins.

The WBAI and the WPFW Local Station Boards voted unanimously against the New Day Pacifica bylaws.

According to a 1,000 word statement put out by opponents of the New Day Pacifica bylaws, “The New Day proposal threatens racial justice and diversity at Pacifica, and disenfranchises the east coast stations with larger Black and Brown memberships, programmers and staff.”

The full statement can be read here:

pacifica-democracy-project.org/blog/1000-word-statement-against-the-proposed-new-day-pacifica-bylaws/

Read the views of opponents of the New Day Referendum here:

pacifica-democracy-project.org/endorsements/

Is WBAI really sinking Pacifica?

In several of the New Day Pacifica email blasts WBAI finances have been brought up to make the argument that WBAI is harming Pacifica. This view is taken out of context as KPFK is losing double to triple the amount of money per month that WBAI is, yet New Day falsely intimates that it is WBAI alone that is ‘sinking’ Pacifica.

WBAI ran a deficit of ($313,081.86) for FY 2020

KPFK ran a deficit of ($697,577.14) for FY 2020

Currently, KPFK is running a deficit of between $70,000 to $90,000 PER MONTH which is double or triple WBAI’s monthly deficit.

This scapegoating of WBAI while ignoring the red ink at KPFK, can be seen by reviewing the latest available Profit and Loss Statement created by NETA, Pacifica’s accounting firm.

Pacifica Financials for 3/31/21 with Percents

The New Day Pacifica website contained fallacious information about WBAI finances and management. That information had to be removed after member complaints were made. Further, this same false information has been repeated many times on the air on KPFK by Ian Masters.

See:

The Confusion of Ian Masters

We know that Jan Goodman, Lyndon Foley and Aki Tanaka approved of the shutdown of WBAI. Their rationale seemed to be that as WBAI has been spending more than it brings in in income it would be best to make it into a repeater station by firing all staff and piping in programming from KPFA and KPFK. Jan has stated that the intention of John Vernile, the iED in 2019 who orchestrated the shutdown, was to make WBAI into a repeater station and then to fix it and restore local programming eventually. It may be that Jan, Aki and Lyndon still believe this fairy tale.

Shutting down WBAI would cost more than it would save – and KPFA would be the loser

First of all, shutting down WBAI and firing all its staff, which was done in October 2019, eliminates the income from that station, which ranges between $1.3 and $1.4 million a year. In order to maintain WBAI as a repeater station, besides the $24,500 per month in fixed expenses, the one-time payment of severance and any legal expenses, there is also the cost of programming the station. If the situation were reversed and KPFA or KPFK were the repeater station the situation would be easier. The reason for this is that you can’t make a straight transfer of programming because the east coast is 3 hours ahead of the west coast and you wouldn’t want to put whatever is airing at 4 am on KPFA on WBAI at 7 am, which is morning drive time. Also, of what interest would local Berkeley issues be to New Yorkers? The idea of making WBAI into a repeater station would require, at minimum, the hire of a Program Director to figure out what programs should be broadcast on WBAI. Another staff person would be needed to manage the WBAI membership because it would be foolhardy to just eliminate 6,000 or 7,000 members. A very rough estimate of running WBAI as a repeater station would be $35,000 per month. Which station would pay that? KPFK is currently barely able to pay its own bills and is chronically behind on its Central Service payments. WPFW is breaking even. The income at KPFT is very low. So, the $35,000 per month burden of WBAI would fall on KPFA.

The status quo is simply a better fiscal choice than making WBAI into a repeater station. Just last week WBAI received a $200,000 bequest which helped ameliorate its monthly deficit. KPFA has the most paid staff of any Pacifica station, by far. If KPFA used its resources to HELP WBAI it’s possible that WBAI could boost its revenue and meet its expenses.

KPFT and WBAI have the most productive staff

Criticizing WBAI management and staff is unjust because they are some of the most productive in the network. It’s very easy to figure that out. You simply divide the total revenue of the station by the total personnel expense. Here’s a chart that shows this:

And here are the raw numbers:

What this means is that for every dollar spent on personnel at WBAI there is a return of $2.18 in income. This is almost double the productivity of staff at KPFK!

We have not done all the calculations for every year, but you are welcome to do so by simply going to the Pacifica.org website and calculating the numbers from the Audited financials.

We do have some charts from 2011 – 2016 which shows the same high staff productivity at WBAI:

Some more background about the stations

In order to transmit the radio signal throughout the signal area it is necessary to locate the transmitter antennae at the highest point possible. In New York City that point was the Twin Towers. After 9-11 the only transmitter site was the Empire State Building, which became the only game in town after 9-11. In 2005 the Pacifica Executive Director and the National Board entered into a 15-year contract with the Empire State Building which had a 9% per year escalator clause. This contract was not the ‘fault’ of WBAI management or staff. However, it put a heavy burden on WBAI and the Foundation as a whole. Because of this, a number of stakeholders, mostly from KPFA, started thinking that it would be a good idea to sell the WBAI radio license. These ideas morphed into blame being placed on WBAI management and staff for a fixed expense they had no control over.

KPFA, KPFK and KPFT pay no rent because their buildings are owned outright by Pacifica. KPFK owns its own transmitter tower and antennae which is located on National Forest land that KPFK rents for a very low annual amount. KPFA also pays very little or no rent for its transmitter. Neither does KPFT. WPFW and WBAI, the 2 east coast stations with the highest proportion of people of color represented in their programming and staff, do not have the advantage of virtually free rent for their broadcast studios and transmitter rents.

• WBAI transmitter location rent is about $18,000 plus $6,500 rent for its studio = over $23,000 per month

• WPFW transmitter location rent $5,000, plus studio rent of $15,000 per month = $20,00

Any evaluation of the managers of KPFT, WPFW and WBAI should also take into consideration the understaffing of those stations, much of which was caused by senior management and the National Board forcing staff cuts, not by the action of local station staff, boards or management. The managers of the 3 understaffed stations cannot be expected to perform equally with stations that have 3 to 4 times as many staff! For example, for every staff person at KPFT there are 9 staff members at KPFA!! For every staff member at WBAI there are 4 staff members at KPFA.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is that public affairs programming takes more staff time and effort to produce and air than music programming. Also, when stations get below a certain threshold many of the staff members in what amounts to a skeleton crew are board operators who just make sure that the show is put on the air, that announcements are made, etc. That leaves very, very few management staff at WBAI, WPFW and KPFT. At WBAI there are currently only 2 staff members in management: the GM and the Program Director.

The hard-working managers and staff at the 2 east coast stations should not be blamed for conditions that were created by the National Board and Senior Management, especially as those stations are the most efficiently run in the network.

Many people who care about Pacifica believe that the hidden plan behind the New Day Pacifica bylaws amendments is to first make WBAI into a repeater station and then within a short time force the sale of that station. Some very naïve New Day proponents think that making WBAI into a repeater station after removing WBAI management and staff could then lead to reviving and rebuilding that station. The lack of a plan to achieve that aim seems to support the theory that the true plan is to sell the WBAI signal. But more on that later.

Let’s start by quoting from Covert Action Magazine:

The Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine has closely studied the ‘New Day Pacifica’ proposal to cancel and overturn the existing bylaws of the Pacifica Foundation, which have protected the Pacifica Radio Network and kept it free and independent of corporate control for nearly 70 years.

We have come to the conclusion that the proposal by ‘New Day’ to cancel the Foundation’s bylaws is an attempt by a small but well-funded group of “corporatists” to break up the Pacifica Radio Network—by disenfranchising, silencing, and then selling off Pacifica Radio WBAI in New York and Pacifica Radio WPFW in Washington, DC. In particular, these two stations have for decades demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to independent broadcasting, and are also the only two stations in the entire network serving cities with a plurality of diverse peoples of color.

Therefore, the Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine—now in our 43rd year—supports, without reservation, a NO vote against overturning Pacifica’s existing bylaws in the upcoming Pacifica referendum to be held this June 2021.

In solidarity,
Editorial Board
CovertAction Magazine

pacifica-democracy-project.org/endorsements/

Carol Spooner, past Pacifica National Board Director and major endorser of the New Day bylaws support for swapping the WBAI signal for an AM signal:

Carol Spooner’s Contingency Plans for Getting Through the Financial Crisis

Three significant efforts have been made to create nonprofits to take over Pacifica assets. One was the ‘Big Tent’ effort. The prior effort was ‘The KPFA Foundation’. Most recently, Sherry Gendelman of ‘Pacifica SafetyNet’, set up another nonprofit to scoop up Pacifica assets. The people behind these efforts are main supporters of the New Day bylaws:

Big Tent:

pacifica.org/documents/press_170414.pdf

KPFA Foundation:

pacificainexile.org/archives/1041

soundcloud.com/tracy-rosenberg/the-kpfa-foundation-aka-the-forgotten-sandwich

Pacifica SafetyNet:

indybay.org/newsitems/2020/12/20/18839023.php

gofundme.com/f/pacifica-safety-net/donate

gofundme.com/f/pacifica-safety-net

Andrea Turner, Pacifica National Director from KPFA, Donald Goldmacher, KPFA Local Station Board Member and Christina Huggins, KPFA Local Station Board Chair, and Craig Alderson, KPFA Member, filed a lawsuit against Pacifica and the current National Board Chair and a past National Board Director. This suit is costing Pacifica tens of thousands of dollars.

For details see:

indybay.org/newsitems/2020/12/20/18839023.php

Beth Kean, a spokesperson for New Day Pacifica, publicly said: “I personally applaud Craig, Donald, Sherry, Christina, Andrea for their courage in taking this head on and saying that something is really wrong with Pacifica and something dramatic needs to be done.”

Listen to her entire statement at a KPFA Local Board meeting on Dec. 19, 2020:

Beth Kean – KPFA LSB 2020-12-19

The secrecy in the creation of the New Day Pacifica proposed bylaws and the silence about what New Day would do if the Referendum succeeds indicates that suspicion is justified.